Pansexual girl and accidental activist

Tag Archives: boundaries

Image description: Pale blue background with words which have been made to look as if the letters were torn from newspapers or magazines, forming a quote – “Activism is the rent I pay for living on this planet.” – Alice Walker

I have recently started spending an inordinate amount of time on Twitter. A year ago, I would have believed that to be a waste of time. A year ago, I was uninformed.

Twitter, largely thanks to the efforts of Black Lives Matter activists like Johnetta Elzie, DeRay Mckesson and Zellie Imani, has become the active, vibrant, effective hub of social change. It’s strange to say, but I sometimes feel like I didn’t really grow up, didn’t really mature in my own feminism, until I found Twitter. Sure, I sort of understood my own white privilege, but I didn’t really know even a third of the racial history of this country. I believed in intersectionality, but I had not quite internalized it.

Twitter changed that, 140 characters at a time. Not to mention all the links to mind-blowing, mind-expanding studies and articles, op-ed pieces and blog entries. It also introduced me to a host of amazing people who are doing some very difficult, often thankless, sometimes risky even to the point of possible death, activism work.

Aside from the cat pics and joke memes (which, let’s be clear, I enjoy more than I should), Twitter has mostly been a feeling of community I’ve missed for a long time. It has given me something I thought I’d lost, before: a place to talk about my personal feminism, without feeling like I was constantly under attack. A place to learn from other people, without feeling completely disconnected from the teachers. A place to debate, where the trolls can fairly easily be dismissed (at least, they can for me; I know others’ experiences haven’t been that at all) by the simple click of a mouse.

And there are the question tweets. Mostly, the questions aren’t original. Often, they’re things I’ve seen a million times, and just haven’t bothered to address or answer, for myself. Simple questions, with maybe not-so-simple answers.

Tonight’s simple question, from Feminist Gals an account created mostly (from what I can tell) to educate teens and college-aged adults about feminism, was this:

Why do you need feminism?

I responded twice, and I’ll include those answers, here. But there is so much more than I could put into tweets, even if I filled that text field over and over again, all night long. I decided to start a living, updated-as-necessary list of all the reasons why I need feminism.

I need feminism…

…because before I was old enough to legally buy a drink in a bar, I’d been molested for five years, gang raped while on a vacation, abused by two different partners, and roofied and raped at a party where I had one drink.

…because my family didn’t believe I’d been molested.

…because I chose a boy I didn’t really care about, to lose my virginity, so that the grown man who was molesting me wouldn’t take it from me, without my consent.

…because virginity has become so commodified in our culture, I actually believed I would lose value as a human being, as soon as I was no longer a virgin.

…because from the moment I had sex with that sweet boy, I was labelled a slut.

…because my best friend at the time was also gang raped, that night, and blamed me for it. Because she and her friend beat me in a parking lot for not saving her.

…because I was taught to question and doubt the validity of my own lived experiences, by people not believing my accounts of them.

…because of gaslighting.

…because, when I told my boyfriend (at the time) about being raped, he blamed me for it, and immediately explained how he would leave me, if I pulled away from him the next time he tried to kiss me or initiate sex.

…because I was still so unsure of my own value as a human being that I stayed with him, anyway.

…because my sexual orientation has been dissected, ridiculed, picked apart, and even been deemed imaginary or non-existent, since I was outed in high school.

…because not all of that came from straight people.

…because a high school guidance counselor told me that I shouldn’t be “shoving it (my sexual orientation) in everybody’s faces, when I spoke to her about the bullying.

…because I was quietly steered away from the hobbies and careers I wanted, when I was young, because of my gender.

…because my childhood religion taught me both that I was the source of all evil, and that my only legitimate purposes on this planet were to make babies and take care of them. And men. To take care of men.

…because my emotions, even when their expression is both logical and appropriate to the situation, are often used to discredit my words. I am neither hysterical nor oversensitive.

…because I had an easier time getting booze at the liquor store, when I was a teenager, than I did getting birth control.

…because I grew up believing that women weren’t supposed to enjoy sex.

…because all the heroes in my books, movies, and TV shows were men and boys, beyond Nancy Drew.

…because I was taught all about all the things I was supposed to do to keep myself from being raped, without ever hearing a thing about consent.

…because my male friends and cousins were never taught not to touch me, if I said no.

…because I was never taught how to set boundaries, or even that I was allowed to do so. In fact, I was made to accept kisses, hugs, cheek-pinches, and to sit in someone’s lap, even when I’d said I didn’t want to do so.

…because parents are still forcing their kids to accept touches and physical affection from people who make them uncomfortable.

…because, until I was in my late twenties, I believed that if I “led a man on” to a certain point, I owed him sex.

…because girls – and more importantly, boys – are still being taught that lie.

…because too many people believe they are entitled to my attention, time, respect, affection, body, and intimacy.

…because girls are still made to choose their clothes for school based upon whether or not the boys might find them “distracting.”

…because the vast majority of legislators making policy and funding decisions about women’s health in the US are male.

…because I’m afraid to post face or full-body pictures of myself online, due to the possible commentary.

…because my clothing does not indicate consent

…because my alcohol consumption doesn’t, either.

…because one in five women will be raped in her lifetime.

…because 1 in 5 girls and 1 in 20 boys are molested as children

…because our country provides those child victims with neither justice nor adequate treatment for their trauma.

…because a child victim of sexual abuse is almost twice as likely to be sexually assaulted or raped, later in life, as someone who was not molested as a child, yet there is no ongoing support system.

…because children almost never lie about sexual abuse, yet are rarely believed.

…because women almost never lie about rape, yet are rarely believed.

…because police officers often interrogate reporting rape victims as if they were the criminals…

…and only about 3% of rapists ever see the inside of a prison cell…

…and victims are revictimized by the court system, during trials…

…and by their communities…

…and by the media…

…yet too many people, when told by a woman that she was raped, refuse to believe her unless she goes to the police.

…because people like RooshV and Donald Trump exist.

And that’s all I’ve got the spoons to type, right now. I’ve barely scratched the surface, and I will be back.

If we’re speaking literally, then, drama is really just a part of life, for everyone. Giving birth is drama. Dealing with a crying baby is drama. Getting married, beginning or ending a relationship or job, getting a promotion or a raise, being stuck in traffic when you’re on your way to something important, the loss of a loved one or pet, the first day of school, work, or marriage, a wedding, a funeral, a cat chasing a robot dog across your living room floor. All of those things qualify as drama, and all of them are perfectly normal, mostly necessary or unavoidable, parts of life. Without drama, there would be no life.

Recently, though, the word “drama” has taken on much more negative connotations. In order to explore those, we need to step into a slightly seedier (if occasionally more amusing) corner of the internet.

From urbandictionary:

The…

Wait… Jesus Christ. That’s a rather… dramatic… discovery. I had to go down thirteen definitions, just to find one that wasn’t completely loaded with misogyny, either in the definition, or in the examples. And number thirteen is so poorly written, I refuse to include it, here.

So, I guess we’ll just start with the number one definition:

Something women and especialy [sic] teenage girls thrive on. consisting of any number of situations that have an easy solution, wich [sic] would bring a fairly good outcome, but these girls choose another, shitty, bad way to deal with it, again consisting of backstabbing, blackmailing/gossiping/betraying their friends, or the all-too-common “I want to break up with him but i still love him!”
it drives men and what i like to call “normal” girls nuts.

Unfortunately, when people talk about drama, these days, the above definition is usually what they’re intending to convey. Unfortunately, it is very much a gendered issue. In fact, looking through the top 35 definitions, there are over 50 blatant misogynist, ableist, or homophobic slurs, or characterizations of women and girls as the main sources of all the “drama,” always.

Which is telling, really, and speaks directly to the point I wanted to make, when I opened up this post. I’d like to include the first definition listed, at number twenty-three, which I feel adequately describes what is actually going on, when someone tosses out the word “drama,” in conversation, especially around sensitive or controversial topics:

A way of referring to problems and other normal complications in life, typically of others; painting them in a negative light so that the person speaking doesn’t come off as being a self-interested jerk even though doing this inherently determines them to be so.

This definition is actually much closer to the truth, I think.

When victims of sexual assault, domestic violence, sexual harassment, or blatant misogyny speak out, or when someone speaks out on their behalf, there’s almost a guarantee that someone, somewhere, will accuse them of being drama queens or drama llamas, or of stirring up drama, or having too much drama, or of causing drama. Often, the people using the term will claim that the person’s tone is the problem, or their personality, or their past.

What this indicates is that the issues to which you are trying to draw necessary attention – issues like domestic violence, rape, sexual assault, and sexual harassment – are uncomfortable for them to hear. It indicates that the person hearing about these important issues doesn’t want to face up to the reality of the problems, doesn’t want to admit that, perhaps, there’s something they may need to do, or change, or put some effort and empathy into, in order to fix the problem.

What it amounts to is fear.They’re afraid of things changing. More often than not, they are comfortable with the way things are. Either the situation isn’t harming them, personally, or they have internalized the harm to a point where they are unable to see how damaging it is, to them, to others, and to their culture as a whole. Or, perhaps for some, they are well aware of the truth of the matter, and don’t want anyone to take what you’re saying seriously, because it might reveal them to be the abusers, rapists, harassers, or violators that they are.

It’s fear, manifesting as intimidation, and it is one of the favorite weapons in the arsenal of the victim blamers, abusers, misogynists, and cowards of the world. It is almost exclusively used against marginalized or victimized people, to discredit them, to silence them, to shame them into not saying things that might make somebody look bad. To make them shut up. To make them question themselves. It’s their way of saying,

STAHP!! Stop saying these things that I don’t want to hear about! Stop trying to take away my illusions or my nice-person mask! Stop telling me things that make me ashamed of things I might have done, or might do in the future! Stop making me have to actually think about what my actions, my choices, my words, or the actions, words, or choices of the people I support and defend, might be doing to other people! Stop pointing out my utter lack of empathy for my fellow human beings!

The worst of it is, in many situations, it works. Often, a victim will speak up to a community, to tell them that their policies aren’t good enough to keep the members safe, or they will give an account of something that another community member did to them, which caused harm, or they will notice a Missing Stair, and ask that someone make the needed repairs. They will be met by an onslaught of criticism, insults, attacks, and threats. They will be accused of being drama queens. They might face entire groups of people, loudly demanding that they stop lying, stop stirring things up, stop causing trouble, stop making noise. They will be met with such ferocious resistance, at a time when they are already vulnerable and raw and afraid… and they will back down. They’ll shut up. They’ll stop trying to draw attention to the problems that need to be recognized and addressed. Sometimes, they’ll simply pull away from the community in which the problems exist, often losing important social support networks in the process. Sometimes, they will internalize what is being thrown their way, and begin to doubt themselves, blame themselves, and by extension, begin to blame other victims, in later problematic situations.

That’s just not okay. Silencing and shaming people who are speaking to legitimate issues, by using the word “drama” as a weapon, is not okay.

So, do me a favor. Stop that. Have a little more empathy.Understand that anyone reporting someone or something which is causing harm isn’t a “drama queen.” They’re a brave, hopeful, empathetic person, trying to keep other people from being harmed, often in ways in which they already have been. They deserve your attention. They deserve to not be invalidated with words like “drama.” They deserve your gratitude, instead of your ridicule.

When you say, I don’t do drama, what I hear is, I am more invested in being comfortably ignorant, and utterly selfish, than I am in showing empathy to my fellow human beings, or taking some responsibility for shaping the culture in which I live.

A friend of a friend wrote about something that happened to her, recently. She was attending a party. Someone asked for her consent to kiss her. She refused. They asked again. She refused again. I don’t know how many times this cycle repeated, but the person kissed her, anyway.

When she posted her account of what happened, there was a comment, asking if she thought it would have happened, had she been there with a partner, or simply been attached. The person commenting was really persistent about the question.

Now, I don’t know any of the people involved. The victim and many of the other people commenting who do know everyone involved seem to believe that the commentator’s questions were likely not intended to be victim-blaming, and I’m inclined to take their word for it. The thing is, it really doesn’t matter whether or not they meant for it to be.

Because it IS.

In another thread, someone about whom I care a great deal, someone I never expected to see blaming victims, even in the most circumspect fashion, wrote:

You are responsible for not being the easy target.

Knowing this person, I honestly do NOT believe they intend to blame victims. But it doesn’t matter. Because they are, with those words, whether they mean to do so or not. It doesn’t matter whether they mean their statement to be victim-blaming.

Because it IS.

I could intend to bake a lemon cake, and use orange zest and flavoring by mistake. My intent doesn’t change the result. I made an orange cake, and no amount of me seeing a lemon cake is going to change that. No amount of me denying that it is an orange cake is going to change that. No amount of trying to explain what my intent was is going to magically turn it into a lemon cake. Period.

It’s an orange cake. And I need to own that, and if lemon cake was my intent, but everyone around me is telling me that it tastes like orange cake? I need to figure out how not to make that mistake again, don’t you think?

The following comes mostly from a comment on the first post I mentioned.

Whenever a person who is any gender other than male is sexually assaulted, the Twenty Questions game almost inevitably begins.

Were you drinking? What were you wearing? Were you leading him on? Were you there alone?

What this line of questioning does is twofold.

First, it takes the focus away from where it belongs. In this specific instance, it takes the focus off the person who kissed someone, even after specifically being told “no,” numerous times. That information, just the last sentence before this one, is ALL THAT MATTERS. Period. He did not have consent. He was even explicitly denied consent. He did it, anyway. It doesn’t matter what she did. It doesn’t matter what she wore. It doesn’t matter if she was drinking, or if she was standing completely naked right next to him. It does NOT matter whether or not she was alone. What she did, or didn’t do, or with whom she attended the party, is irrelevant.

He asked. She said no. He did it, anyway.

Which brings us to the second point. Putting the focus on anything that she did or did not do makes it easier for some people to rationalize what he did. It puts the onus for controlling his behavior on her. Making it her job to alter her own behavior, in order to somehow control his. It’s the same thing schools do, when they create a dress code that prohibits strappy tanks or skirts more than two inches above the knee, on girls, in order to keep boys from behaving badly.

See, whether or not you’re right about what, hypothetically, may have happened, if she’d had a partner present, or if she was wearing more conservative clothing, or didn’t have that drink, it doesn’t matter. And you’re basically saying that she could have done something (not attended alone, etc.) that would have possibly made him not do something (kiss her without consent).

He is the one who chose to ignore her “no.” He is the one who chose to kiss her, even though he knew it wasn’t okay with her. He is the one who ignored consent. Therefore, his behavior is the only behavior that needs to be questioned, here. Period. To do otherwise is to relieve him of the burden of being held fully accountable for his own choices, his own behavior. And if you’re doing that, then you are, whether intentionally or not, putting some portion of the responsibility for what he did on her shoulders.

And that is why people tell you that you’re victim blaming. Not saying that you are a person who actually believes that victims are at fault, but that line of thought inevitably puts responsibility on someone other than the person who chose to act. And doing so, regardless of intent,IS victim blaming.

So, instead, why don’t we focus on the person who kissed her without her consent? Why don’t we ask what he could have done to prevent what happened? …what choices he could have made that would have kept him from violating someone’s consent? …what behaviors, and possibly patterns of thought, heneeds to work on changing, in order to not do that again? …and, in the immediate circumstances, what he’s going to do to make amends to the person he has already violated?

Because those are the questions that really need to be asked, and discussed, and analyzed, if we’re going to put a stop to things like this happening.

I see a lot of things written about happiness. About what it means, and what to do to achieve it, about not having it, about having it and being rather smug about it, about how everyone should go about finding it, about what things are supposedly universally antithetical to it.

It baffles me, really.

See, there’s this thing about people. We’re different. And I think most of us recognize that, at least on some level. Still, though, there’s this tendency to make sweeping generalizations about our emotional states, as if happiness, sadness, anger, jealousy, or excitement look precisely the same for you as they do for me as they do for every other Joe Blow and Clara Cunnlingus and Farley Fiddler on the planet. So, we look at something someone else is doing, and immediately decide that they can’t possibly be happy, because what they are doing wouldn’t make us happy. Then, we get to prance around, smug and preening, puffing out our chests, lording it over those who are obviously so much less happy than we are.

It’s un-evolved, illogical, bollocks.

I don’t know, unless you tell me, what makes you happy. I wouldn’t presume to tell you that what works for me will absolutely work for you, beyond some very basic things, like practicing gratitude, and not indulging our negative self-talk. I will, however, believe you if you tell me what your happiness is all about.

And this is mine.

I don’t know how much stock anyone else puts in the Meyers-Briggs thing, but for me, it holds pretty true. I’m an ENFP. The archetype that is most commonly associated with that personality type is the Champion.

Yep. That’s right. n- a person who fights for or defends a person or cause.

There are a few other essential traits that are common to ENFPs, which will help you understand what makes me tick. We are all about ideas and people. We tend to genuinely like people, and to believe that humanity, as a whole, is basically good. We have carefully considered, and very strongly held values, which we do our utmost to live by and promote, in every aspect of our lives. Being true to ourselves is usually one of our highest aspirations. We inspire people towards growth. We lead. We’re storytellers and writers and artists with purpose.

People like to think of the most vocal among us as angry, simply because we’re passionate about the things that matter to us, on a larger scale than just our own inner circles. That couldn’t be further from the truth.

Personally, I am happiest when I feel like I am making a difference. Whether that is in the life of one person, or in the broader social context of activism, that is my jam. It’s what makes me tick. For other people, happiness may be that quiet, serene contentment of an orderly home and a rigid routine, where everything is just so, and the outside world doesn’t intrude on the idyllic peacefulness. I’m very glad for those people, when they achieve their version of bliss, but it would drive me stark, raving mad. I’d go all Yellow Wallpaper, in a matter of days.

For me, what makes my world go ’round is the absolute certainty of my daughter, that not only do I not judge her for her sexual orientation, but I will go balls to the wall against anyone who uses it against her in any damaging way. The message in my inbox, telling me that a thing I’ve written helped someone to come to terms with something with which they’ve been struggling, or kept them from being hurt by the thoughtless and oppressive words of others. The knowledge that the line of acceptable behavior, when it comes to rape culture, is shifting just a little, and that I am playing a part in that, however small.

I could just sit by, in spite of all the things I see people doing to harm one another, and keep my mouth shut, and tend to my own tiny metaphorical garden, speaking only when I’m face-to-face with a person, and happen quietly upon the perfect teachable moment.

I posted most of this as a comment on a post, elsewhere, in response to another comment. (What follows has been slightly edited, and expanded from the original.)

The comment basically said that men who rape are abnormal, and that what they do isn’t a learned behavior.

I beg to differ.

I would agree that no man who molests children is ‘normal.’ As to the men who rape women, well, I see that a bit differently. Some of the men who do these things aren’t normal. But not all, by far. Many of them are as normal, as statistically average in every way, as they can possibly be, and are simply the end products of societal conditioning that shows them, over and over and over, that they don’t have to be held accountable for their aggressive behaviors when it comes to relating to women, or transpeople, or anyone who isn’t a man.

See, we (society) have this picture of “RAPIST” that is the stranger lurking in the bushes, or behind a parked car, waiting to jump out and attack us, and drag us off into some dark, dank space to have their way with us. We (society) have this picture of “REAL RAPE” as something that is always a violent attack, with brutal, aggressive force, weapons, masked men, which takes place between strangers in dark alleys.

The statistics do not support that picture. The vast majority of rape is perpetuated by people known to the victims, trusted by the victims. It is more likely to be coercive, or the result of more subtle intimidation and power-play, than brute physical attack.

People say that the behavior hasn’t been taught to them. Actually, it has, in many, many cases. Sure. Someone, somewhere, told them “don’t rape.” Maybe. But the real messages coming from society aren’t so black and white. They are taught, over and over and over and over again that their aggressive sexual behavior is either perfectly okay, or not their fault or responsibility. That they can’t be expected to control their sexual impulses or desires, because … cavemen, or something?

If she was wearing a short skirt, or tight jeans, or a revealing top, or makeup, she obviously wanted to draw attention from men. So, if they catcall or approach her, if they get all up in her personal space, she must have wanted that, right? Because she wore those clothes that drew their attention, so that’s her responsibility.

If she went to a bar and sat down to have a drink alone, she obviously wanted their ham-handed come-ons and PUA bullshit. She obviously wants someone to pursue her, even if she says no. She couldn’t just be there to enjoy a drink, either alone or with her friends.

If she’s rejecting their advances, she doesn’t really mean it. She’s only saying no to be a tease, to make them pursue her, to play hard to get, to tantalize and inflame men’s desire for the chase. Because her behavior is all about them, doncha know.

If she’s passed out drunk, or so intoxicated that she slurs her words and stumbles when she walks, then it’s all on her if he has sex with her. She shouldn’t have had so much to drink.

See, ^these are the things we have really been teaching men. That “boys will be boys,” and aren’t responsible for their behavior. Look back, reallyLOOK, at all of those scenarios. In each case, someone is acting, and someone is being acted upon. Yet, in each case, society tells the person who is acting that it is the “personal responsibility” of the person being actedupon to play gatekeeper. To not wear the clothes or the makeup that ‘entice men.’ To not have a damned drink in a bar. To be blunt to the point of cruelty if they want their rejection taken seriously (which can then bring on even more aggressive, violent, threatening behavior).

But we absolve the person who is acting, in each scenario, of any accountability whatsoever.

So, yeah, in many cases, they ARE being taught that it’s okay to ignore boundaries. That it’s okay to push past them. That it’s okay to get in someone else’s personal space, even when the person is expressing distaste or unease or discomfort or outright rejection. They are being taught that it is not their responsibility to not rape. They are not being held accountable for acting, and they are being shown, repeatedly, that when they do act, the responsibility for their behavior is on the person at whom the behavior is directed.

Under the he-had-a-weapon-and-was-a-stranger-and-she-was-beaten-into-submission model, sure. Very few men do that.

But LOADS of men who don’t fit that “REAL RAPIST” false archetype are raping women. They rape their wives and girlfriends. They rape passed out girls and too-drunk-to-consent women at parties. They refuse to take no for an answer, and coerce and intimidate and bully and push and push and push until she gives in, not actually consenting, but unable to withstand the onslaught.

And we (society) overwhelmingly blame her. Even though he was the one pursuing, he was the one acting, we blame his victim. And he knows it. He may not think that he’s raping someone. He may think this is just how sex works. HE. IS. WRONG. And so is the society that teaches him that he isn’t.

No. We may not explicitly teach men to rape. We just teach them that, if they do, it’s perfectly understandable, and not their fault. Which amounts to the same damned thing.

The idea that there’s someone for everyone, someone who will love us no matter what, accept us just as we are, warts and all. Someone who will continue to give us that love, regardless of circumstance or change, action or inaction. Blanket absolution for every flaw, every misdeed.

Friendship? The same ideals seem to apply. Respect? Admiration? Also the same.

The thing is, none of those things are unconditional. And I don’t think they should be.

There are conditions on every single type of relationship, on every human interaction. Those conditions are mostly unspoken, silently understood. Tacit social agreements. The clerk at the convenience store won’t charge you for things you don’t buy. If he does, he risks losing the employment through which your interaction with him takes place. The teller at the bank won’t pocket part of your deposit, or she risks the same thing. The trucker behind you on the highway won’t ram into you and push you into oncoming traffic, or he risks losing his job, his license, and his freedom.

Your friends won’t steal from you. They won’t trash your things, or take undue advantage of you. They will listen when you speak. They won’t decide that they know, better than you, what your motivations or experiences are. They won’t form their opinions about you without coming straight to the source, and giving you the chance to clear up any misconceptions they might have. If they do, they risk losing the friendship.

Your romantic partners won’t intentionally harm you. They won’t lie to you about important things. If you’ve agreed to be monogamous, they won’t cheat. If they do, they risk losing the relationship.

All of these things are conditions, set on relationships from the outset. Most of the time, they aren’t explicitly stated, but they exist just the same. No relationship is unconditional. Love is conditional. Admiration is conditional. Professional relationships are conditional. Friendships are conditional. Romantic relationships are conditional.

Frankly, it would be unhealthy, otherwise.

Unconditional love, unless it’s the kind given to minor children by parents, leads to some pretty busted shit. It’s at least a part of the reason, in many cases, that domestic abuse victims stay with their abusers. It’s the reason why people allow themselves to be beaten down, repeatedly, in unhealthy relationships with relatives.

Without these conditions, you’re basically saying, “You can treat me however you like, do whatever you want to me, and I’ll still take it, still allow you to have influence in my life, still continue to make you a priority.” You’re devaluing yourself, your emotions, your safety, your own experience, and the relationships, themselves.

Our relationships, whether romantic, friendship, professional or otherwise, exist for a reason. There’s a commonality between you and the other person, between your interests, ethics, goals and/or ideals. If this weren’t the case, then the person with whom you have the relationship wouldn’t matter. You could replace them with any warm body, any other person, no matter their personality or commonality with you, and it would make no difference.

The conditions are what make the relationships valuable, at their core.

Unconditional love is a sweet and reassuring concept, on the surface, much like “…and they lived happily ever after.”